Lost box of old family letters found in the road by distant relative

Jan. 10 (UPI) -- An Ontario woman who lost a box of her grandparents' old love letters when they fell from the back of a family member's vehicle was reunited with the precious heirlooms by a man who turned out to be a distant relative.

Jennifer Rybachuk of Sudbury said she was supposed to receive the letters, which were exchanged by her grandparents between 1945 and 1949, in December, but a family member accidentally left the box on his pickup truck cover and they were believed to have fallen off in transit.

The family put out a plea for help finding the letters on Facebook, but it was three weeks before they received a response from Steven Sullivan.

Sullivan said he had been driving in December when he saw the box in the middle of a road. He looked inside and decided to put the box into the back of his truck, but he forgot about the box until he mentioned it to his family a few weeks later.

Sullivan's family members told him about the Facebook post they had seen, and he was able to get into contact with Rybachuk.

Sullivan said he recognized a family name from one of the letters and asked Rybachuk about it -- leading to the discovery that they are third cousins.